New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras launched a fresh attack on the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) accusing it of risking Greece’s future and siding with the speculators who wish to revert the country to the drachma, as he opened his party’s National Conference at the Peace and Friendship Stadium in Piraeus on Saturday.

Samaras accused SYRIZA of serving the pro-drachma lobby, which he described as “a web of entangled interests including those who have taken their money abroad so as to return after the exit from the eurozone and buy Greece on a cheap rate to become the new oligarchs; that’s who SYRIZA serves,” thundered Samaras, who on Friday saw opinion polls putting his party neck-and-neck with the leftists.

“You say you are going to abandon the bailout memorandum. Are you also going to abandon the debt haircut?” asked Samaras addressing SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras.

The New Democracy president called on his party members and supporters to rally together, as “there are times in the life of a political party when hardship turns into strength. You ought to be proud that you are the shield for the safeguarding of what the Greek people have achieved. Today I am addressing a rally of fighters who on June 17 will become government.”

“In difficult times, people depend on their own souls,” said Samaras in the end, as former Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis led a standing ovation from the front row, with former Democratic Alliance leader Dora Bakoyannis just three seats to his right.